Lot 294 | ZINAIDA EVGENIEVNA SEREBRIAKOVA (1884-1967)
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Portrait of Ekaterina Zelenkova, sister of the artist oil on canvas 391/4x31 1/8in. (99.5x79cm.) LITERATURE S. Ernst, Zinaida Serebriakova, Petrograd, 1922, p.31 EXHIBITION Moscow, Paintings from The World of Art, 1913, "Portrait of E.E. Zelenkova", no. 341 St. Petersburg, Paintings from The World of Art, 1913, "Portrait of E.E. Zalenkova", no. 297 Leningrad, Paintings from Z.E. Serebriakova, 1929, no. 48 Leningrad, Paintings of Russian Painters from 18-20th centuries, 1959, no. 34 Moscow, Zinaida Serebriakova: 100 Years, 1986, cat. ill. p. 104 NOTES One of the most well-known Russian female painters, Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova (1884-1967) was born proabably into the most artistic russian families. Her father, Yevgenii Lanceray, was a well-known sculptor and her mother came from the famous Benois family. The family was so artistic that no one was surprised by the girl's talent and her desire to become an artist. She studied at the Art School headed by Ilya Repin, then at Osip Braz's Studio and at the Acad‚mie de la Grande ChaumiŠre in Paris. Serebriakova's early works already showed her own style and interests, which were influenced by the Classics such as Tintoretto, Poussin and Rubens. However, she was most of all captivated by the purity and chastity of Venetsianov's peasants and saw the inseparable link between these traits and Russian nature. She painted numerous portraits of women, which poeticized the beauty of their outer appearance as well as the and intimacy of their inner world. Serebriakova belonged to the group of 'World of Art' leaders who, to various degrees, were followers of Neoclassicism in art, searching for proportions and strict plastic forms, allowing her to endow her far from perfect models with idealistic features, while at the same time preserving the sensation of the life-likeness of the depicted scene. The present portrait of the artist's sister Ekaterina Lanceray Zelenkova was painted in 1913 at the prime of her artistic career. Serebriakova selects and accentuates the model's features that answer to her personal ideas of beauty, adding a touch of sublimity to the original face. Cleansed of everything secondary and unintentional, the subject's outer appearance acquires an harmonic integrity and poeticness typical of Renaissance portraits.
